MiniChess Goes Global

At our 2013 conference Marisa van der Merwe inspired many with her moving talk on chess teaching in South African townships. Through her MiniChess curriculum thousands of disadvantaged kids picked up arithmetic and coordination skills. At the time she was already deep into a new project, translating MiniChess into an app, that can reach many more children worldwide. Marisa found investors and an Estonian team for the programming.

As the MiniChess app is just being launched, Marisa is working the globe: She was an invited speaker at the recent WISE convention in Doha, a prestigious education conference. Here is a video of her session. Actually, another WISE speaker Paul Tough spoke about school chess in New York. From Doha Marisa went to Australia and New Zealand. In December it´s on to London.

The mouse Cheddar is the hero of the MiniChess App

The energetic networker is partnering with Kasparov Chess Foundation Africa to bring the educational benefits of chess to other African countries. Another cooperator is educational psychologist Joreta Parsons, who is also joining the conference.